Evaluating the Prospects: Rangers, Rockies, D’Backs, Twins, Astros, Cubs, Reds, Phillies, Rays, Mets, Padres, Marlins, Nationals, Red Sox, White Sox, Orioles, Yankees, Braves, Athletics, Angels, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Tigers, Cardinals, Brewers, Indians, Mariners, Pirates, Royals & Giants

Top 200 Prospects Content Index

Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

Draft Rankings: 2015, 2016 & 2017

International Coverage: 2015 July 2nd Parts One, Two & Three, 2016 July 2nd

The Mariners have done a nice job in amateur acquisition the last few years, evidenced by 4th round, well-below-slot college senior signs LF Patrick Kivlehan and LHP Ryan Yarbrough in the 45 FV group on the list. Seattle has always spent money internationally and there’s clear evidence of that below. As noted in the Gareth Morgan scouting report, the Mariners have shown a clear preference for right-handed power in the amateur markets in recent years, but taking Alex Jackson 6th overall last year was a slam-dunk decision on a guy Seattle didn’t think would make it to their pick. There’s a nice mix of international and domestic, high upside and high certainty, hitter and pitcher, etc. I have this system in the middle third of the org rankings, with plenty of upside guys that could help raise that ranking next year.

Read the rest of this entry »

To say Javier Baez had a rocky start to his big league career would be an understatement. After tearing up the minor leagues to the tune of .274/.331/.541, the 21-year-old rookie hit a putrid .169/.227/.324 in 52 games with the Chicago Cubs last year. His on base percentage was the lowest of any hitter who recorded at least 200 plate appearances last year.

Baez’s contact problems were unprecedentedly chronic. Just 59% of his swings resulted in contact, which is the lowest mark we’ve seen in the PITCHf/x era. However, Baez’s Contact% only tells part of the story. It reveals that many of his swings didn’t lead to contact, but doesn’t tell us why. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the Cleveland. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not Cleveland’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the Cleveland system who are most ready to produce wins at the major-league level in 2015 (regardless of whether they’re likely to receive the opportunity to do so). No attempt has been made, in other words, to account for future value.

Below are the top-five prospects in the Cleveland system by projected WAR. To assemble this brief list, what I’ve done is to locate the Steamer 600 projections for all the prospects to whom McDaniel assessed a Future Value grade of 40 or greater. Hitters’ numbers are normalized to 550 plate appearances; starting pitchers’, to 150 innings — i.e. the playing-time thresholds at which a league-average player would produce a 2.0 WAR. Catcher projections are prorated to 415 plate appearances to account for their reduced playing time.

Note that, in many cases, defensive value has been calculated entirely by positional adjustment based on the relevant player’s minor-league defensive starts — which is to say, there has been no attempt to account for the runs a player is likely to save in the field. As a result, players with an impressive offensive profile relative to their position are sometimes perhaps overvalued — that is, in such cases where their actual defensive skills are sub-par.

Read the rest of this entry »

Steven Souza destroyed Triple-A pitching last season. In 96 games with Triple-A Syracuse, the outfielder hit a gaudy .350/.432/.590, and and kicked in 26 steals for good measure. All told, his offensive exploits generated a wRC+ of 180, which was the highest of any player with even 100 plate appearances in Triple-A last year.

With that showing, Souza made it clear that he was ready for a new challenge. However, as a member of the Washington Nationals organization, he was blocked by incumbent starters Bryce Harper, Jayson Werth and Denard Span. Additionally, he was competing with Michael Taylor — another hotshot outfield prospect who made a mockery of the minor leagues last season.

Souza’s path to the majors became a lot more clear last December when the Nationals dealt him to the Tampa Bay Rays in the deal that sent Wil Myers to the San Diego Padres. As a Ray, Souza’s only real competition is Brandon Guyer, David DeJesus and Mikie Mahtook. Clearly, the Rays are placing a lot of faith in their rookie right fielder.

Souza isn’t your typical rookie. Most prospects who are projected to have significant big league impacts are in their early 20’s. Souza, on the other hand, will celebrate his 26th birthday in April. Believe it or not, Jason Heyward, Giancarlo Stanton, Starlin Castro and Freddie Freeman — who feel like they’ve been around forever — are all younger than Souza. Still, despite his age, Souza’s gotten a fair amount of hype in prospect circles this winter. Baseball America, John Sickels and our very own Kiley McDaniel each placed him in their respective top 100 lists.

Read the rest of this entry »

Evaluating the Prospects: Rangers, Rockies, D’Backs, Twins, Astros, Cubs, Reds, Phillies, Rays, Mets, Padres, Marlins, Nationals, Red Sox, White Sox, Orioles, Yankees, Braves, Athletics, Angels, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Tigers, Cardinals, Brewers, Indians, Mariners, Pirates, Royals & Giants

Top 200 Prospects Content Index

Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

Draft Rankings: 2015, 2016 & 2017

International Coverage: 2015 July 2nd Parts One, Two & Three, 2016 July 2nd

The Indians are deep. I list 50 prospects below and their 27 and under list is among the deepest in the game, along with a surprising amount of recently-emerging high-end talent. That’s good scouting and it’s come from big league moves, trades, the draft and international signings: one team exec said this is the deepest they’ve been on the farm since 2005. The Tribe’s last five first round picks are prospects 1-4 and 6 on this list, with the 5th prospect a 1st rounder they acquired from another club. After Lindor there isn’t an elite prospect, but there’s plenty of upside types in the top half of the list that could make the jump this year.

Read the rest of this entry »

In their most recent round of roster cuts, the Kansas City Royals optioned outfielder Terrance Gore to High-A Wilmington. Gore was one of seven players the Royals cut this week, and one of hundreds who have been cut from their respective teams this spring. However, Gore differs from most of these guys in that he was a player of some significance the last time meaningful baseball was played: In last year’s World Series. Gore became something of a household name last October, when he served as the Royals designated pinch-runner during their in their unlikely run to the World Series. The speedy 23-year-old appeared in six playoff games for the Royals — and stole three bases — without recording a single plate appearance or inning on defense.

Gore’s blazing speed made him an exciting player to watch last October, and as far as pinch-runners go, he’s about as good as they come. But unfortunately for Gore, pinch-runners can only provide so much value, even if they represent a very important run. Back in 2012, Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus reasoned that Billy Hamilton would be worth just one-tenth of a win over one month of games while serving as a pinch-runner.

Of course, Hamilton has since turned into a nice little player, racking up a respectable 3.7 fWAR last season. However, Gore’s nowhere near the hitter that Hamilton is. By no means is Hamilton a good hitter, but he can hit at least a little bit — He put up a 79 wRC+ in 2014. Gore on the other hand, put up a 57 wRC+ … in A-ball.

Read the rest of this entry »

A point that is often overlooked within any discussion of baseball — whether it’s in print or amongst friends — is how utterly and entirely useless the game is. Yes, it probably has some role in the construction and maintenance of regional identity or as a means by which one can become acquainted with concepts integral to the field of statistics. These are mostly secondary products of the sport, however — and certainly not the reason for its existence.

Its wild lack of utility isn’t a weakness of the pastime, however, but rather an argument decidedly in its favor. Aristotle celebrates in one of his texts what he calls autotelic activities — that is, the sort of endeavors in which one participates as an end in themselves. Aristotle argues that contemplation is such an activity. Except among Catholic people over the age of 65, sex is often discussed in the same terms. Baseball, like most sports, is another example of an autotelic enterprise: one plays or consumes it to no other end than for the purposes of enjoyment*.

*A suggestion which, admittedly, is problematized by the existence of the Phillies and their fans.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, Kiley McDaniel published his write-up of the Milwaukee Brewers farm system, marking the 25th installment of his “Evaluating the Prospects” series. Once he makes it through the five teams left on the table, he’ll be publishing his ranking of all thirty teams’ farm systems. In anticipation of this release, I thought it would be interesting to create an organizational ranking based exclusively on KATOH — my prospect projection system. The methodology for making this list seems pretty obvious: Simply add up all of the KATOH projections for the players on each team. In practice, however, this isn’t nearly as straightforward as it sounds.

First, I had to decide what to do with players who appeared in only a small number of games. For example, Carlos Rodon — the White Sox top prospect — receives a projection of 7.9 WAR through age-28. That projection seems pretty reasonable for Rodon, but it’s only based on 95 batters faced over 21 innings. That  sample’s not nearly large enough to mean much of anything.

To address this problem, I decided to only consider players who logged at least 200 plate appearances last season (or 200 batters faced for pitchers). This inevitably means that some big-name prospects (like Rodon) wind up being excluded, but there’s really no other way to go about it. KATOH projections are based on 2014 stats, and for guys who only appeared in a few games, the 2014 stats are almost meaningless.

There’s also the issue of knowing the affiliations for thousands of minor league players. My database of 2014 stats includes each player’s organization from the 2014 season, but a lot has changed since then. It would be easy enough to account for the players who were traded, but what about the hundreds of nondescript minor league free agents who changed organizations over the winter? It would be futile to try to figure out where each one ended up.

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the Milwaukee Brewers. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not Milwaukee’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the Brewers system who are most ready to produce wins at the major-league level in 2015 (regardless of whether they’re likely to receive the opportunity to do so). No attempt has been made, in other words, to account for future value.

Below are the top-five prospects in the Milwaukee system by projected WAR. To assemble this brief list, what I’ve done is to locate the Steamer 600 projections for all the prospects to whom McDaniel assessed a Future Value grade of 40 or greater. Hitters’ numbers are normalized to 550 plate appearances; starting pitchers’, to 150 innings — i.e. the playing-time thresholds at which a league-average player would produce a 2.0 WAR. Catcher projections are prorated to 415 plate appearances to account for their reduced playing time.

Note that, in many cases, defensive value has been calculated entirely by positional adjustment based on the relevant player’s minor-league defensive starts — which is to say, there has been no attempt to account for the runs a player is likely to save in the field. As a result, players with an impressive offensive profile relative to their position are sometimes perhaps overvalued — that is, in such cases where their actual defensive skills are sub-par.

Read the rest of this entry »

Evaluating the Prospects: Rangers, Rockies, D’Backs, Twins, Astros, Cubs, Reds, Phillies, Rays, Mets, Padres, Marlins, Nationals, Red Sox, White Sox, Orioles, Yankees, Braves, Athletics, Angels, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Tigers, Cardinals, Brewers, Indians, Mariners, Pirates, Royals & Giants

Top 200 Prospects Content Index

Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

Draft Rankings: 2015, 2016 & 2017

International Coverage: 2015 July 2nd Parts One, Two & Three, 2016 July 2nd

The top of this list is muddled; I could see the top eight guys in almost any order by midseason and I predict I’ll be changing some of these 45 and 50 FV grades in-season. The Brewers haven’t had a great farm system in recent years, but the big league club had a mini-rebuild and the amateur talent acquisition has seem positive early returns from a more aggressive approach. Gilbert Lara is the consensus best player in last summer’s July 2nd crop and he took a notable step forward after signing with an impressive showing at instructs.

From the 2014 draft, I think 3B Jacob Gatewood is a little too risky for $1.83 million, but the early returns on CF Monte Harrison are excellent and there’s plenty to like about LHP Kodi Medeiros, even if he was a bit worn down after signing. All of these three were part of an aggressive approach, so I’d expect one to work out in a big way. The depth is drastically better now than the past few years and the arrow is pointing up in general.  There isn’t a super elite prospect in the system and this is still a system in the bottom third of baseball, but the Brew Crew are deep in that second tier of talent and there’s plenty of depth and upside here to see a higher ranking in next year’s list as a likelihood.

Read the rest of this entry »